Are you working towards your 1-tempi changes? This video takes you through how I train for them and some good tips for setting them up!
Practicing your tempi changes without stirrups is a great way to refine your seat and the aids! I have a tendency to pitch forward and out of the saddle when I use my stirrups so this forces me to keep my butt glued in during the changes.
Before you start with the one tempis, make sure that your aids are working correctly by doing some 2-and 3-tempis.
Here are some basic pre-requisites for changes:
- Get a good quality canter going
- Ride a good corner
- Get your horse straight on the diagonal
- Make sure your horse is round and uphill before starting your changes
As we know, the aids for the flying change are that you swap the leg aids. So right lead canter, your left leg is behind the girth, with right leg at the girth, and you swap your leg position and release the new inside rein make the change.
The timing for these tempi changes can be a bit tricky.
For 2-tempis you go Stride-Aid-Stride-Aid
But for 1-tempi changes, you have to give the next aid before the horse has even completed the change. There’s no full canter stride in between. It is like skipping!
To introduce the 1-tempis, I always start on the quarter line with what I call Ticktocks. Do two 1-tempis in a row and then canter on the inside lead for a few strides, and then repeat again. I call these TickTocks. You can build from doing three tick-tocks the length of the arena to shortening the among of normal canter you do and upping the number of TickTocks until you are doing 15 1-tempis!
It goes without saying that you build this slowly so as to allow them time to build the strength and so as not to overload or injure your horse. If you start having trouble with your tempi changes, go back to the walk-canter-walk transitions.
Have a look at the video where myself and the incredible Natasha (half sister of Valegro!) go through all of this and let me know in the comments if you find this helpful.
